“No,” I replied. “You planned this. I documented it.”
Six months later, the courtroom was packed.
Daniel accepted a plea after Celeste testified against him to save herself and still failed. The judge sentenced him to life with the chance of parole placed so far away it might as well have belonged to another century. Celeste received twenty-five years. Daniel’s mother was charged with helping conceal financial records and lost the house she had boasted would be hers forever.
Maya’s stolen inheritance was recovered. I placed half of it into a foundation for women escaping violent marriages and the other half into a scholarship in the baby’s name.
On the first anniversary of their funeral, I went to the cemetery alone.
The grass had grown soft over both graves. I tied a new pink ribbon around the baby’s stone and laid white lilies beside Maya’s name.
For the first time in a year, the silence did not feel like an open wound.
It felt like peace.
I touched my sister’s headstone and whispered, “I found out.”
Then I stood, my badge warm in my pocket, and walked back into the sunlight.
